Inspired by Bob Cordery’s DayGlo Castle

Last week was enriched for me by watching Bob Cordery on his Wargaming Miscellany blog transform a flourescent My Little Pony-esque aquarium castle …

http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/a-day-glo-castle-what-was-i-thinking.html

into a promisingly odd Ruritanian war games castle in finest shades of grey. Inspired.

http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/the-former-day-glo-castle-begins-to.html

This made me think it was time to start work on another recent seaside gift shop impulse purchase that I saw and thought, “That might just be …”

54mm Tradition of London metal Confederate infantry and Herald Confederate Bugler in the original unaltered  “Summer House”.

It took me a while to work out exactly what the house was for. Looking at it outside the shop, hidden beneath its very reasonable price label of £6.99, I spotted a fairly obvious hole.

40mm Prince August homecast cowboy figures (designed by HE Holger Eriksson)

A hole which could be turned from looking through a “round window” into a “square window” (memories  of 1970s BBC Playschool flood back!)

An  unusual  hideyhole for a sneaky Yankee sniper … a stylish Herald 1950s 54mm Union infantryman.

I looked at this and thought that underneath the charmingly rustic addition of moss and pine cones, there was a simple solid little building, albeit one a little grand in its gables and roof work.

Maybe it could be a Wild West Train station? A mail or trading post?

It could be an excellently rough toy-like building for the wargames table or garden war game, representing a range of periods. With a little work …

Simple plain back wall. Beautifully painted 54mm Confederate Butternut infantry from the Tradition of London’s old shop in Shepherd’s Market, London.

It works with a range of figure scales from Lego minifigures and 40mm Prince August Cowboys through to 54mm.

Already stripped of some of its stranger decoration, its lazy potential begins to show. Suitable American themed Lego minifigures.

A touch of Andrew Wyeth or Grant Wood’s American Gothic …

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/14/hobby-learning-1-andrew-wyeth/

Further Renovations

Short work with a craft knife removed the oversized blue hat, bird house, pine cone roof decorations, hanging string thread and twisty branch things. Much of it was originally hot glue gunned in the factory, so not too difficult to remove. I wanted to keep the rough and ready nature of the building and its materials

Some of this removed scrap was reused such as the staples, reused to hook on the removable Station and Stores signs, which were made from thin balsa wood. These hooked over the existing “Our Summer Home” Sign. In this way different language signs could be used for different scenarios. The new looking Balsa signs were aged by staining with a tea bag, confident that the lettering would not run as I used artists fine liner waterproof ink pens.

The separate “miniature bird house” on the pole is now an ornament in my kitchen.

Tracks laid, the railway halt is open and a photograph taken to mark the occasion …. Tradition of London 54mm figures except the Station master / guard with repaired flag.

The official railway halt  opening photograph, June  18## (reproduced with permission from our tiny blog photographer).

The altered bird house entrance / round window can be seen here.

Watch out! The Rainbow Gang are in town … Red, Blue and Yella (no coward, he!) Lovely Britain’s hollowcast figures.

A simple square window was added to the rounded bird hole and the small round perch removed. This was glued at front as a log next to the giant axe. Small wooden patches of damage from removing items were repaired either by brown felt tip or coloured / stained coffee stirrer ‘patches’ superglued in place. Good and rustic.

Changing the signs around and adding a female and child figure from the Safari Toob Wild West Settlers set brings the look of a proud couple of homesteaders being photographed outside their store.

Balsa, coffee stirrers, felt tip pens, and a bought bird house – all this saved me time, paint and mess especially having no workshop and few woodwork skills. Like Bob Cordery’s greyed dayglo castle, I may add some flock but the base feels like a wooden veranda or porch.

A happy bit of “Kit Bashing” on the kitchen table, which certainly saved me some woodwork. It should provide an interesting focus to a suitable backwoods scenario game.

If anyone asks what I do outside work, I can say I am now a proud home owner or property developer, renovating an interesting period property with no previous owners.

Or should I have painted up my carefully hoarded boxed 1978 Airfix Bluetits kit from their Nature Series and let them move in?

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, 9 June 2017